Spiegel & Grau is launching as an independent publisher with co-founders Cindy Spiegel and Julie Grau as co-CEOs. The company plans to publish 15-20 titles a year with a business model "designed to support authors across multiple media formats," with books "at the center of the company."
Earlier founding editors and publishers of Riverhead Books, Spiegel and Grau founded Spiegel & Grau in 2005 as an imprint at Random House. Early last year, Penguin Random House announced that Spiegel & Grau would be closed and the founders would leave the company.
The revived Spiegel & Grau's staff includes president Liza Wachter, co-founder of the RWSG Literary Agency who will head the film & television side of the business; associate publisher Amy Metsch, formerly associate publisher and editorial director of PRH Audio, who will head audio; and COO Jacqueline Fischetti, who created Penguin's lecture bureau and led its international business development. Other founding members are Sam Nicholson, a former Random House editor; Aaron Robertson, a writer, translator, and former editor at Lit Hub; and digital director Sarah Kim.
In a joint statement, Spiegel and Grau said, "We are a team of hands-on editors and media professionals with decades of experience helping to shape, produce, and publish content. By enlisting strategic partners who share our values, vision, and sense of mission, we are able to take a holistic approach to content, creating a bespoke publishing plan that finds the best vehicles for storytelling, while always honoring the work's integrity. At a time when we need stories more than ever to elevate and transport us and to expand our sense of the possible, we bring a collaborative spirit to serving creators and their work."
At Spiegel & Grau, they published such bestsellers as Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Orange Is the New Black by Piper Kerman, Beastie Boys Book, Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, 21 Questions for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari, Women and Money by Suze Orman and Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick. At Riverhead Books, they launched the careers of many writers, including Khaled Hosseini, James McBride, Junot Díaz, Gary Shteyngart, ZZ Packer, Dan Pink and Sarah Waters.
The new Spiegel & Grau's first title is Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship by Catherine Raven, which will be published in July 2021.
Spiegel & Grau will be distributed by Ingram's Two Rivers Distribution. Findaway will co-publish and distribute its audiobooks. The company has established a first-look deal with Amazon Studios and formed a partnership with Lemonada Media for original audio content.
Spiegel & Grau investors include Ian and Nancy Ashken, Emerson Collective, and William R. Hearst III. The board consists of chairman Ian Ashken, co-founder and vice chairman of Jarden; Nina Lorez Collins, a former literary agent and scout, a trustee of the Brooklyn Public Library, and the founder of the Woolfer; Julie Grau; Cindy Spiegel; and Liza Wachter.